The Pittsburgh Housing eCounselor: Using Information Technology and Management Science to Help Housing Choice Voucher Program Participants Choose Better Homes and Communities

This paper describes a prototype spatial decision support system (SDSS) designed to assist Housing Choice Voucher Program clients, with the guidance of housing counselors, make better quality decisions about neighborhoods in which to search for rental housing and specific rental units to evaluate for occupancy. This application also serves as a marketing tool for public housing authorities (PHAs) in encouraging landlords to participate in the HCVP. This application, called the Pittsburgh Housing eCounselor, makes three contributions to housing research. First, it provides specific guidance to clients and counselors regarding the housing search process that has not been previously documented in the literature of housing mobility programs. Second, the eCounselor introduces a housing/neighborhood choice algorithm based on multi-criteria decision models that incorporates alternative client relocation strategies and accommodates the desire of PHAs to leverage data on known HCVP housing opportunities. Third, it provides a basis for counseling support in other housing domains: home-ownership, affordable housing and fair housing. This paper presents the design of the Pittsburgh Housing eCounselor, including a survey of HCVP clients and housing specialists intended to generate system requirements, and describes implementation deliverables to date. Preliminary response to the Pittsburgh Housing eCounselor by housing specialists and clients has been encouraging. Further research to develop a professional-quality application suitable for outcomes evaluation is ongoing.